Ideas on making FPS/Quake 3 playable (more than runnable)

[skeezix]

As many of us know .. Quake3 (and others) are nicely runnable.


There are some bugs in the Q3 nub handlers etc, but they more or less work fine; to me, Q3 is 'unplayable' though -- it runs fine, but that UI is just not tuned to the controls we have; its still a desktop app, mapped to a native app.


Maybe I just suck (I do), but I woudl really love to be able to join into a network Q3 game and stand a chance


I've not fired it up in months, but I recall thinking at the time ...


o most play (at least against bots) is on a flat plane, not too much vertical; we could make it 'drift' towards horizontal, or introduce 'vertical friction' -- when looking up and down or around within a certain up/down region band, it'd be fast moving on the nub (for spinning around or looking a little up/down.) But for looking say more than 30 degrees up/down from straight ahead, it'd start to slow down based on degree-from-straight delta or something; ie: it seemed ot me to tend to fly up/down so easily, when really I just wanted to look around or swivel


A mouse+keyb has always been optimal for FPS (I find Halo etc totally unplayable on Xbox, since I normally am a PC gamer. They have to have auto-targeting and junk to make them remotely useful ) .. I'm not sure why mouse+keyb is so good, but I assume its..


- WASD for move (we have dpad, should be same)


- mouselook mode


- fire while mouselook with same hand


So we've got strafe and forward/back with dpad. Or we could use nub but maybe hard to control.


So how do we manage aiming and shooting? Is the nub too sensitive, is that all? Or do we need to change how we think about it? Any ideas?


(ie: See mupen and Mario 64.. plays okay on the nubs; the nubs aren't at fault, its just how they're used, I think.)


Could get touchscreen play all sorted out and it'd likely work fine (I've played like that on PDAs 7+ years ago), but it'd be awkward imho.


I want dpad (move) and nub (aim) and shoulder (fire) or somesuch..


.. any ideas on what sort of control scheme might make Q3 playable?


Question: I've not had time ot play really, I always just code (Doh ) .. how does Q1 and Q2 and AlephOne play.. they're FPS, do they control okay? Is it just Q3, or do they all stink for controls so far? (Note that Q1/2/3 all use the same control code from pickle, so if Q1 controls okay, I'd think Q3 to control okay.. but maybe the Q3 Game design itself makes the controls need to be peek performance?)


jeff

 

[Blue Protoman]

Quake 1 controls well, haven't tried 2 yet. Bug pickle for an update on that front, perhaps?

 

[skeezix]

Well, I've been thinking if I can get some time, I might work on Q3 controls.


So more to point .. aside from the nub bug, what woudl make them useful?


jeff

 

[gruso]

I want dpad (move) and nub (aim) and shoulder (fire) or somesuch..

Yep. Vertical movement on that right nub is a killer though, as you said. The few times I've played Q3 I've quit after a minute of looking at the ceiling. It would help if there was some more deadzone on the vertical axis, if that's possible, to prevent looking at the sky when you're trying to spin around.


I like the idea of automatically drifitng back to horizontal, too.Goldeneye used this to great effect - it holds your view if you look up/down while stationary, but once you start walking it drifts back to centre over about a second.


I'll have a go at all three Quakes this evening, see if I can gather some more thoughts.

 

[quadomatic]

Has anybody tried using the touchscreen for aiming, like in Metroid Prime: Hunters?

 

[doragasu]

I play nicely Quake II and Duke Nukem 3D with a bit of control tweaking. The first thing I do upon flashing a new FW in my pandora is to swap both nubs, so the left nub is for mousebuttons and the right nub is to move the mouse.


With this configuration, you can launch Quake 2/DN3D and map the digital cross to move fw/bw and strafe. Using the digital cross for movement and the right nub for aiming works perfect for me and the game plays nicely. Too bad I can't do this with Quake III, I can get controls to work properly.


If you have a problem with nubs sensitivity, you can implement a dead zone and also play with the configured sensitivity in the game. Also disabling mouse acceleration helps a lot.


By the way, I didn't know there's a working Quake I port for the Pandora...

 

[gruso]

^ Your nub swapping suggestion is brilliant. I just did it, and had actual fun in Q2 and Q3 with barely any settings touched! That's a keeper. Q1 didn't take to it so successfully - I'm not sure if the mouse is implemented properly, or if it was PEBKAC. It's still in beta:


http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/58651-quake-1-zquake-with-gles

 

[Mr_Loon]

...


A mouse+keyb has always been optimal for FPS (I find Halo etc totally unplayable on Xbox, since I normally am a PC gamer. They have to have auto-targeting and junk to make them remotely useful ) .. I'm not sure why mouse+keyb is so good, but I assume its..


...

Totally agree, after using a mouse + keyboard for control of FPS games, anything else seems like a step back to me.


So my request would be to add mouse support to Pandora Quake 3, obviously this should not be the default mode but to have it as an option would be superb.

 

[Trip]

The first thing I do upon flashing a new FW in my pandora is to swap both nubs, so the left nub is for mousebuttons and the right nub is to move the mouse.

I'd also prefer..


Joypad = Arrow keys on keyboard.


Left stick = Mouse buttons.


Right stick = Mouse movement.


Joypad buttons = Home, End, Page up and Page down. (useful for Internet)


I thought this was the default configuration any way?